XII

STEWARDSHIP

Say, fellows, how much is a boy worth in money? The United States Labour Bureau in 1914 estimated the average cost of rearing a boy to the age of sixteen was then $1,325. It must average at least $1,500 now. Well, fellows, that is what you cost; are you worth it? I am talking of actual, not sentimental, values. Father and mother wouldn't take a million dollars for any one of you, I suppose, but that does not mean you are worth it. An investment of $1,500 ordinarily is expected to yield at least six per cent. a year, which is $90.

I know a fourteen-year-old boy who is earning $7 a week. He gives it all to his widowed mother on Sat.u.r.day night. She gives him back a dollar of it. He first takes out ten cents for his church pledge and five cents for Sunday-school. Then he puts fifty cents in his savings bank. He has about $25 in the bank. The remainder, thirty-five cents, he spends as his fancy dictates. He is a steady boy and it is reasonable to count upon his putting in eleven months a year at his work, allowing one month for vacation. His gross financial value to his mother for the year, therefore, is not less than $280. It costs her about $12.50 a month to provide his food and clothing. That takes off $150, so his net financial value a year is $130, which is six per cent. on $2,166. Thus you see that fourteen-year-old boy is a paying investment on considerably more than the average cost of a sixteen-year-old boy, and I do not wonder that that fellow's mother would not take a million for him, for the money part of his value is the least of all.

But this is not by any means an accurate way to arrive at a boy's real value. The more fortunate boy will be going to school nine months of the year. He is preparing for a later very much higher value than the boy who is denied an education, and while he may not be earning money now, he is earning a certain knowledge, skill, and development which will give him equipment of high value. At any rate, sooner or later, fellows, you find yourself with a capacity for earning and acc.u.mulating money. And, remember, in your relation to your money, that after all it is not _yours_, but G.o.d's--no matter how it comes into your hands.

In Luke 16 is the account of Dives, whom G.o.d permitted to be rich, but who made the fatal mistake of using his wealth for the sole purpose of gratifying himself. He built a luxurious home, he bought fine clothes and feasted every day on costly food. There were suffering and want all about him, but he turned his face away from the needy. One poor fellow named Lazarus, too weak to walk and all covered with sores, was laid at this rich man's gate where he was bound to see him day after day.

The dogs came and licked the poor man's sores, but Dives pa.s.sed him by. Lazarus got a servant to ask for the sc.r.a.ps taken from the rich man's table, but he needed other help. G.o.d gave Dives money and gave him an opportunity to serve his fellow-man with it, but Dives failed to catch the idea, somehow. He foolishly spent his money upon himself, and one night Dives lay down to sleep on a full stomach and woke up in torment.

Fellows, money was his undoing. Money can be a curse, or it can be a blessing. All depends upon whether or not you recognize G.o.d's ownership, acknowledge it, and act upon it. Some of the saddest lives ever lived are those built around a wrong conception of their relation to money. Some of the happiest and most successful lives are those built upon the principle that money is a G.o.d-given trust to be used for Him.

Fellows, what are you going to be worth--to G.o.d, and to your fellow-man?

_Read Luke 16:19-31._

XIII

TALENTS

Say, fellows, one morning in spring a boy came to me and said: "Dad, let's go fishing; I saw the ba.s.s jumping in the lake just now, and that means they are ready to bite."

"All right," I replied, "you get the bait and the lines ready and we will go at four this afternoon." He did so.

Then we went around to the point on the lake where he had seen the fish jumping. I made a dandy throw, first try, and as the bait began bobbing in and out among the flags I could just see myself hanging a beauty. I was watching the line so hard that I forgot the boy for two or three minutes; then, turning, I saw him standing there looking very sad.

"What's the matter," I said, "why don't you unwrap your line and fish?"

He whimpered: "I want to fish for ba.s.s, with a big line, like yours."

"Why," I said, "you couldn't handle a big rod and line like this; and if you could, you would get it tangled up in those flags out there; now you just unwrap your little line, put a little worm on your little hook and drop it over there by that stump, and you will catch a little perch."

Well, he didn't want to do it, but because I ordered him to do it he cast in his hook. In the meantime, I was watching my minnow again; it was playing beautifully, but getting no strike. I was still watching it intently, when all of a sudden I heard a great splashing beside me, and looking around--there was a sight! That boy's little pole was nearly bent double, and at the end of his line threshing and churning the water at a terrific rate was a big fish! The boy was having the time of his life; oh, he played him, he tightened him and slacked him, but all the time bringing him nearer to the bank.

In about a half minute (it seemed much longer) there was _a pound-and-a-half ba.s.s_ flapping out there on the gra.s.s. In the meantime, the big hook continued to do nothing--and it never did, that afternoon. We went home with the one ba.s.s, and that night the family sat around the supper table and greatly enjoyed the fish _caught on the little hook_.

G.o.d will honour the fellow that does the best he can _with what he has in his hand_. And perhaps it will be a far greater honour than you ever dreamed of.

When our Lord told the parable He did not mean to make small of the fellow who has only small ability. He condemned the fellow who refused to use what ability he had because it was small and because he did not have as much as somebody else to work with. Let's suppose the last part of that parable had read this way:

"Then he which had received the One Talent came and said, Lord, you only gave me one talent, and when I saw you giving that other fellow five and still another two, I was all cut up about it. I did not see why you should give them more to work with than you gave me. I boiled inside. I said to myself, Well, if that is the way he treats me, I will simply take his talent and bury it until he comes back; then I will dig it up and hand it back to him just as he handed it to me.

"But then I thought again, and I remembered that it was your property you were distributing, and you had a perfect right to do it as you chose. I remembered that you are both a wise and a kind master; you have never given me a reason to question your love for me and your interest in me; and you know me and my capacity for handling your property far better than I know myself. So I decided to take that One Talent and work with it and do the very best I could with it. And, Lord, I did; and here, see--I have gained another one to go with it; here are _two talents_."

Bless your life, fellows, do you know what his lord would have said to that man? He would have said to him exactly what he said to the other two men.

A poor boy in New York got himself a job at a little lunch stand. He found he had a little talent for making the lunches attractive and people would buy them. He stuck at it, saved his earnings, and after a while bought out the lunch stand. He enlarged the variety of his lunches and added some other goods. And, to make a long story short, he is now acknowledged to be the greatest hotel man in the world.

The fellow who uses the talent he has, be it one, two, or five, and takes Jesus for his partner, is bound to be a success.

_Read Matthew 25:14-30._

XIV

FIGHTING

Say, fellows! of all the boys in the Old Testament, David is my choice. There was something about that chap that was "real cla.s.s."

If David were to happen in your bunch, doubtless when you got to knowing him every one of you would want him for a chum. He was the kind of fellow that real boys like: not a braggart and not a "sissy,"

but generally when it came to his turn to bat he smashed the ball for a clean hit. Or if he should happen to strike out, he didn't slam the stick to the ground, but with a smile stepped back and turned a handspring and lit on his feet rooting for the next man up. Of course, you know there was not any baseball in those days, but that is about the way David would have played the game.

Out there minding the sheep, David didn't get moody. It might have been a slow job for others, but not for him. No, he had a harp and he made music with it. He had a sling, and could hit a quarter on a telegraph pole with it--if there had been quarters and telegraph poles. But there were other things to use that sling on, and they gave David a touch of real life.

David knew that lions, bears, and wolves lurked in the forests near the pastures in which his sheep must graze, and he got ready for them.

Notice, fellows, here is one of the secrets of David's success: he was always ready. His big opportunity came when he arrived at King Saul's camp on that errand for his father, and he was ready for it.

He was ready, first, because he believed G.o.d's power was greater than any army, and that G.o.d would fight for any one who fought for Him. Did you notice in the Bible account how David told the king that G.o.d would handle the matter; and how he also told Goliath out there on the field, while all men held their breath, that it was Goliath plus sword, spear, and shield, against David plus G.o.d?

And so G.o.d helped. One smooth stone, the first out of the sling, crunched through that big bluffer's head like a baseball through a stained gla.s.s window, and the Philistine fell on his face.

Everybody's giant comes some day. Every fellow's big opportunity comes one time, at least, and he can be just as ready for it as David was.

That's the big news to-day.

I like to think of the five smooth stones as representing five characteristics of David's readiness.

_First Stone:_ (the one he slung) _Faith._ We have been talking about that--faith in G.o.d. David prayed as he picked up those stones, you know he did.

_Second Stone: A pure heart._ G.o.d searched it that day at Bethlehem and approved him for anointing. David was clean. You would never hear him telling s.m.u.tty stories, nor did he think them.

_Third Stone: Industrious habits._ Think of his skill in playing the harp, and his effectiveness with that deadly sling.

_Fourth Stone: A courageous spirit._ A lion's mane, a bear's skin, and a giant's head, of which we know, bear testimony to this. No wonder the shepherd boy could stand before a king and reason with him in the presence of a national crisis.

_Fifth Stone: A humble spirit._ Listed last, but not least by a good deal. "Thy servant will go and fight this Philistine"; "Thy servant kept his father's sheep and--" "The Lord will" do this thing--not I.